NEW YORK: Tickets are selling out fast to the plethora of award-winning, controversial, and ground-breaking movies that are part of the stellar line-up of the 12th annual New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), the longest-running and prestigious showcase of Indian films in the United States.
Presented by the Indo-American Arts Council, NYIFF 2012 will take place from May 23 to 27 at the home for independent films, Tribeca Cinemas in Lower Manhattan.
The opening night red carpet screening of Bedabrata Pain’s ‘Chittagong’ will take place at the iconic Paris Theater on May 23, followed by a benefit gala. The centerpiece film, right off the cutting room floor, is the world premiere of Rituparno Ghosh’s ‘Chitrangada’, which will have two screenings at Tribeca Cinemas.
The closing night red carpet screening of Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ will be presented at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, followed by an awards ceremony and after party sponsored by Wells Fargo.
Gangs of Wasseypur comes directly from the prestigious Festival de Cannes 2012, as a part of the Director’s Fortnight section. The movie is a revenge sage spanning three generations set against the socio-political dynamic in erstwhile Bihar (North India), in the coal and scrap trade mafia of Wasseypur, through the imprudence of a place obsessed with mainstream ‘Bollywood’ cinema.
In Chitrangada, Rituparno Ghosh faces the camera again in the role of a choreographer who plans to stage the dance drama Chitrangada on the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary.
Other Festival highlights include Oscar-winning documentary ‘Saving Face’ from Pakistan, as well as award-winning films from South Africa, Australia, and Sri Lanka; in addition to films in Hindi and English, regional-language films in Tamil, Bengali, and Marathi; the controversial Kashmiri film ‘Inshallah Football’; an exciting secret film, which will be revealed during the festival; a special tribute to the late Dev Anand – Hum Dono Rangeen; and Shyam Benegal’s retrospective trilogy – Zubeida, Mammo, Sardari Begum.
Special musical tributes to the late Shammi Kapoor and the late Dev Anand by songstress Devika Bhise with Ben Rosenblum on keyboard are also part of the show.
Over the past decade, IAAC’s film festival in New York has majorly come into its own having frown in prestige and influence as a platform to reckon with.
While Variety magazine has called the New York Indian Film Festival the “grand-daddy” of all Indian film festivals in the US, the Wall Street Journal says the IAAC has grown into the area’s most mainstream Indian film festival, offering features, documentaries, shorts and indies in numerous Indian languages and from various countries. The growth has led not only to a wider range of films, but to new partnerships and inroads to American audiences.
“It’s just been very pleasurable to see how it’s grown,” said celebrity author Salman Rushdie of the Festival. “I remember when it started…its grown to become a very serious thing and I think now they get the best films, it gets a lot of media attention and I think it’s a fantastic platform, both for Indian filmmakers from the US‚ and from India.”
Consul General of India in New York since 2008, Ambassador Prabhu Dayal says, “The IAAC Film Festival has become one of the most important cultural events on the calendar of the Indian-American community.”